Hevesi Returns to Combative Mode of Old in a Challenge to Giuliani

During his first 18 months in office, City Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi pursued a strategy that surprised some who recalled his more partisan, Republican-baiting days in Albany. He decided that attacking a popular Republican Mayor would not earn him credibility in his new role as the distant, dignified and even dull steward of the city's fiscal health.

Then late last month, Mr. Hevesi, for 22 years a liberal Democratic Assemblyman from Forest Hills, Queens, seemed to break dramatically from this approach: he vowed to block Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's proposed sale of the city's water system for $2.3 billion, a measure aimed at raising $400 million this year alone for construction projects. The move represented an extraordinary use of the Comptroller's powers, and by Wednesday, when Mr. Hevesi announced his final decision to block the sale, the issue had erupted into the first full-fledged fire fight between the two men that is now headed for court.

Mr. Giuliani's top aide accused Mr. Hevesi of playing politics, and Mr. Hevesi fired back, again calling the sale a dangerous gimmick and ridiculing Mr. Giuliani's accusations as laughable.

It was unclear whether the battle marked an end to what had been a wary, if cordial, relationship between the Comptroller's office and City Hall. Despite the recent heat, Mr. Hevesi said last week that he did not expect much change in their relationship.

"It's a substantive disagreement," he said, "a very important one, but we will continue to do business as we have to, I hope in a very cordial and nonpartisan way." But his tone earlier in the week recalled the more aggressive Mr. Hevesi of days past.

"When Alan got up on an issue I always felt the hairs on the back of my neck go up," a Republican Assemblyman recalled about Mr. Hevesi in Albany, a past that several friends said Mr. Giuliani may have underestimated. "You never knew where he was going."

And while Mr. Hevesi has won praise on the water issue from fiscal monitors and environmentalists, friends and critics alike speculated that it was not entirely in the service of good government. Several saw it as the ideal issue for Mr. Hevesi to show the Mayor that his usual quiet cooperation was not to be taken for granted.

Others speculated that Mr. Hevesi, a former Queens College professor and a politician of strong but often frustrated ambition, was taking a first step to raise his low profile in preparation for pursuing higher office. Several friends said he had mused over Gov. George E. Pataki's weaknesses. They and others speculated that he wanted to run for governor in 1998, a contest that may become crowded with hungry and better-known Democrats.

"I think he definitely wants to run for something higher," said City Councilman Charles Millard, a Republican. "I think he is basically a solid guy whom I respect. But on this water authority thing he looks a little bit like he wanted some attention."

Mr. Hevesi, 55, a cerebral former college basketball star, dismissed any suggestion of politics. Partisanship was fine in Albany, he said, but inappropriate in the Comptroller's finer clothes.

"My job was to go after Republicans," he said in a recent interview. "And I developed what I thought at the time was a repertoire of sound bites and debate methods, techniques, in order to defend a Democratic position. So now when somebody gets sharp with me, my mind is attuned. I've got a sound bite.

"But I'm not allowed to use it," he said in mock exasperation. "I walk around muttering sound bites, you know, because we will not enter the fray on that level."

On the water sale, he said he worried that $800 million could be used for operating expenses, committing the "cardinal sin" of using the money for daily city costs. Second, he said the sale to the New York City Water Board, a quasi-independent agency, could leave the city without one of its most valuable assets, its water system, at a time when upstate and downstate are battling over the watershed's future.

Mr. Hevesi also noted that he has taken on the Mayor in the past, most visibly last summer over the city's retaining a second financial advice firm, owned by a black woman. While Mr. Hevesi defended the use of two firms, Deputy Mayor John S. Dyson called the second one superfluous, saying in an interview, "The comptroller ought to know the difference between a bid and a watermelon."

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Even if it has not made Mr. Hevesi a household word, the water board issue undoubtedly raised the profile of a man whose slogan in 1993 was "Alan Who?" and who as Comptroller has not sought the spotlight with his predecessors' gusto.

From the start of his political career, Mr. Hevesi has been considered an aristocrat in the mighty and once mightily corrupt Queens Democratic machine. His grandfather was the Chief Rabbi of Budapest. His father was a Hungarian diplomat who remained in this country after the first anti-Semitic laws were passed in Hungary in 1937. Fifty-five members of his family perished in the Holocaust. His only sibling, Dennis, is a reporter at The New York Times.

In the Assembly, Mr. Hevesi, the author of more than 100 laws, was considered an intellectual and a skilled debater. As he did with the water board, Mr. Hevesi often argued the substance of an issue, which friends said could cloak a hard political edge, even if he seemed uneasy going for the jugular.

A friend, Assemblyman Michael A. L. Balboni, Republican of Nassau County, remembered once casually telling Mr. Hevesi that a Long Island Congressional seat was open.

"He said, 'Are you interested?' " Mr. Balboni recalled. "I said, 'Who wouldn't be?' just in passing. He said: 'Then this is what we do: We get a mailing together. We send it to the whole district. This is what Mike Balboni believes on crime issues. It won't cost that much. You can use this particular printing company.'

"He went into campaign mode instantly," Mr. Balboni added. "He's a political animal."

But Mr. Hevesi was not as successful in managing his own ambitions. He turned down the opportunity to become a United States Representative from Queens in 1983 after the death of the incumbent. He also turned down the chance to become Queens Borough President after Donald Manes committed suicide in 1986.

That year, Mr. Hevesi was outfoxed in his long-planned bid to replace Assembly Speaker Stanley Fink, and his career went into decline when he withdrew from the race, then backed the loser. After losing the Comptroller's race in 1989, he defeated Elizabeth Holtzman four years later.

In office, Mr. Hevesi has doubled the number of audits, vigorously enforced the prevailing-wage laws and has generally earned respect for his performance in both parties. But some Democrats have wondered why he has not been more visible. Some speculate Mr. Hevesi has been growing accustomed to the job. Others mention troubles at home: last summer, his wife, Carol, who has long suffered from a debilitating spinal injury, attempted suicide.

Because the comptroller's job is limited to two terms under the new term-limit measure, Mr. Hevesi acknowledged that it was reasonable to expect him to consider another job, though he refused to discuss his ambitions. He did say he planned to run for re-election in 1997, which would appear to rule out a run for mayor that year.

If he pursues his party's nomination for governor in 1998, however, it may be a tough battle. The State Comptroller, H. Carl McCall, is reportedly interested; Representative Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of Brooklyn, has long considered a run. The Assembly Speaker, Sheldon Silver, and the City Council Speaker, Peter F. Vallone, have also been mentioned as candidates.

Though many say he would make a potentially solid candidate, several colleagues say Mr. Hevesi lacks a killer instinct. For all his partisan skills, they say, his strengths tilt away from all-out party warfare.

"Governor, in my humble, off-the-record opinion, is going to be a big scrape," one Queens Democrat said. "Alan may not have the bare knuckles that you need."

Like all careful politicians, Mr. Hevesi said his future is a worry that is far away.

"All I know is if we do it right here, if we really stick to the game plan, which is substance, maybe I'll have an option," he said. Then he added, "Maybe not."

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A version of this article appears in print on July 31, 1995, on Page B00002 of the National edition with the headline: Hevesi Returns to Combative Mode of Old in a Challenge to Giuliani. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe